The paranoid style has rightly been sanctioned, but to the detriment of other more healthful forms of public neurotism. @liberalcurrents.com I argue that perhaps what the country needs is for liberal politics to grow more paranoid in style, not less. www.liberalcurrents.com/too-great-fo...

Listen to @gawattia.bsky.social talk about what history can teach us about the war in Iran youtube.com/shorts/fWImX...

“There are certain physical facts—bodies of water, deposits of gas—that technology was never going to transcend, except in the ultra-long term.’’ says Janan Ganesh. Missing from his list is history. My new piece for @liberalcurrents.com looks back at 1982. www.liberalcurrents.com/the-war-that...

New @liberalcurrents.com: “The American psyche understandably recoils at the sight of armed men in masks…masks are associated with cowardly desperados and the despised Ku Klux Klan…introducing a layer of secrecy at a time of low government trust.” www.liberalcurrents.com/call-you-thi...

Millions of people in the American South were subjected to what the French call ‘‘une vie sanglante’’(a bloody life). As I explain in this @liberalcurrents.com article, the world should never forget that. Memory of past cruelties builds a liberal conscience www.liberalcurrents.com/the-liberal-...

Readings this week...

"Liberalism ... is able to find unity in diversity by balancing the need for enduring order on one hand and restless dynamism on the other." A reformed US political system, with robust immigration from Africa, can counter the demographic bomb of low fertility that is dragging down China and Europe.

good piece from guillaume about some relatively basic demographic facts that are more or less baked into the cake at this point. as the saying goes, "all the new workers of 2046 have already been born." guess where that's happening?

“Liberals do not believe that the security and prosperity of nations must depend on complete uniformity of thought, manners, and coloration.” Indeed, “fierce disputation and colorful variety are often a sign of good health, not terminal decline.” www.liberalcurrents.com/future-is-af...

And today, @gawattia.bsky.social argues against Megyn Kelly's pernicious idea that free speech is something exercised quietly and peacefully from the safety of your home, when instead "tense, heated, and socially disruptive speech" is necessary for the health of the body politic

On Sept. 1, 2025 an internal memo by the Portland police described the anti-ICE protests there as showing “little to no energy.” As I argue in this @liberalcurrents.com article, liberal philosophers like W.Humboldt prized the ‘high energy’ of vigorous criticism. www.liberalcurrents.com/s/

“When such critics and editors disappear, every part of the literary ecosystem suffers.” Indeed, reviewing books is a humane enterprise: it helps us understand ourselves and others better. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

A small selection from the past week and a half of reading, with special emphasis on conservatism and its political embodiment in the U.S. Some people think books don’t matter, but without them we are cut off from the past, misunderstand the present, and are unprepared to face the future.

Readings this week…

People make fun of this site being all 37 year olds, but apparently my fellow 37 year olds are on the front lines getting shot

“The transatlantic crisis is the effect of a much bigger change: the coming of a multi-polar age. In Europe, a staggering three-quarters of Germans and French now view China unfavourably. Meanwhile, 73% of French people and 71% of Germans believe that the US is no longer an ally.”

Working on an article analysis of the Carney speech. This column is by miles the most sober write-up so far and much closer to my views: www.thetimes.com/article/bc7b...

Rhetoric v Reality: “Worryingly, if you’re a medium-size tenant living above an increasingly unhinged neighbour, it seems geography largely remains destiny.”

“His advisers told me that the Greenland squeeze is part of a broader effort to cement his legacy among the elite club of presidents that includes Polk, Jefferson, and Dwight Eisenhower, who significantly expanded the size of the country.” www.theatlantic.com/national-sec...

“Indeed the Venezuela campaign marked an “externalisation” of a domestic agenda that brings military might to drug and immigration enforcement, says @jekavanagh of Defence Priorities, a think-tank. The goal is domination everywhere, including in American cities.”

We published @taylorcarik.bsky.social on ordinary life in Minneapolis this week www.liberalcurrents.com/so-hows-the-... And then interviewed @whstancil.bsky.social for the view from a rapid responder www.liberalcurrents.com/neon-liberal...

The Spirit of the Laws: “A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.” James Madison. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/18/o...

"Neighbors in neon vests dot the neighborhood... Information-sharing networks have been built. Residents have connected with non-profits and churches to deliver food to people who are locked in their homes out of fear. Resistance signs are everywhere..." www.liberalcurrents.com/so-hows-the-...

Liberal Currents is the sixth biggest publication!....to be shared on @seabirdreader.bsky.social in 2025

When the racist meme becomes national policy

The Spirit of the Laws…

“Perhaps the most fundamental moves have been aimed at increasing the president’s de facto power (i.e. his control over the informal fourth branch of government: the administrative state, or what MAGA calls the ‘the deep state’).” www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

A very generous donor last night donated $5,000, pushing us up another percentage point. We're less than $10k away from 40% of our goal, a very significant milestone for doing what we want to this year. Please help us get there! gofund.me/8df9f2204

More on what is happening at Texas A&M: In the “Symposium,” Plato describes homosexuality as fully natural and suggests that there are more than two genders. That’s enough to trouble the government and warrant school scrutiny: www.ms.now/opinion/plat...

It would appear I am now a columnist at Inside Higher Ed. My first piece focuses on McCarthyism, censorship, and our current moment in higher education. This is an essay I started nearly 6 months ago so I'm glad to finally share it with y'all. www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...

New @liberalcurrents.com: Liberals stand for the energetic and disruptive expression of unpopular, reviled, and at times caustic ideas, without fear of official state reprisal, and to the benefit of freedom and progress in society. www.liberalcurrents.com/cancel-cultu...

One reason resource imperialism doesn’t work in the modern world is that wealth of nations is mainly built on human rather natural resources. Countries that do not tie their economic fate to oil are generally more dynamic.

Trump says oil money “will be controlled by me,” and as CNN reports may deposit the proceeds in offshore bank accounts. By what authority? His. He told the Times: “I don’t need international law.” This is the founders’ nightmare come true after 250 years of existence.

A donor has asked to pay for five one-month trials to our Community Subscriber tier. This includes: -Discord access -The Opposition Report -The Editors Chat Please email writers @ liberalcurrents dot com if you'd like to be one of these five. First five in get it.

As discussed in my article, under the existing Labor government scheme set to come into force from April, rates for pubs will rise by 76% over three years (the equivalent of £12,900) and an amazing 115% for hotels.

Called it.

Matt Walsh doesn’t just categorise Somalis as ‘low-IQ’, as @adamgurri.liberalcurrents.com points out, he says that this ‘mental retardation’ makes them unworthy of moral protection (as seen below): the ‘lesbian agitator’ died in vain for people of little intelligence.

Trump’s incoherent State capitalism: oil companies being asked to act like state-owned-enterprises and disregard short term profit for political, fiscal, or geopolitical goals. responsiblestatecraft.org/venezuela-oil/

“For one thing, a US president who is willing to bomb another sovereign nation and exfiltrate its leader is not someone who shows much respect for rules and conventions (however nasty the seized president might be).”

Readings this week…

It’s not enough, says Constant, to weaken the power of the executive. One must also strengthen the moral power of society. As this new @liberalcurrents.com article contends, “without virtuous public officials, constitutional limits will have their limits.” www.liberalcurrents.com/the-spirit-o...

‘Even if Maduro illegally seized power and is guilty of criminal conduct, those facts don’t create lawful justification to use military force against Venezuela. Nonviolent means (economic and diplomatic sanctions) are the only legal response under international law’. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/06/o...

“We live in a world…that is governed by strength, force, and power” says Mr. Miller. This moment “illustrates how people like Mr. Miller have ascended to the inner circle of a leader who has no interest in having his impulses checked.” www.nytimes.com/2026/01/06/u...